Van Dongen, EGD: Contributory negligence - A historical and comparative study

This interesting study is concerned with one of those perennial problems of the civilian tradition, namely the rise of "contributory negligence" in cases of delict. Van Dongen traces the history of this notion from Roman to contemporary law. The book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 contains an introduction in which the main topic of study, the method adopted and the structure are all set out. Diachronic studies of an aspect of legal history are tricky and the method and scope sections are well worth reading. The author does a good job of limiting and justifying the choices made further on in the volume. It is particularly interesting to see the comments about Roman law and how one should not merely see it as the starting point in a long line of development.